- Dutch
- Frisian
- Saterfrisian
- Afrikaans
-
- Syntax
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Verbs and Verb Phrases
- 1 Characterization and classification
- 2 Projection of verb phrases I:Argument structure
- 3 Projection of verb phrases II:Verb frame alternations
- Introduction
- 3.1. Main types
- 3.2. Alternations involving the external argument
- 3.3. Alternations of noun phrases and PPs
- 3.3.1. Dative/PP alternations (dative shift)
- 3.3.1.1. Dative alternation with aan-phrases (recipients)
- 3.3.1.2. Dative alternation with naar-phrases (goals)
- 3.3.1.3. Dative alternation with van-phrases (sources)
- 3.3.1.4. Dative alternation with bij-phrases (possessors)
- 3.3.1.5. Dative alternation with voor-phrases (benefactives)
- 3.3.1.6. Conclusion
- 3.3.1.7. Bibliographical notes
- 3.3.2. Accusative/PP alternations
- 3.3.3. Nominative/PP alternations
- 3.3.1. Dative/PP alternations (dative shift)
- 3.4. Some apparent cases of verb frame alternation
- 3.5. Bibliographical notes
- 4 Projection of verb phrases IIIa:Selection of clauses/verb phrases
- 5 Projection of verb phrases IIIb:Argument and complementive clauses
- Introduction
- 5.1. Finite argument clauses
- 5.2. Infinitival argument clauses
- 5.3. Complementive clauses
- 6 Projection of verb phrases IIIc:Complements of non-main verbs
- 7 Projection of verb phrases IIId:Verb clusters
- 8 Projection of verb phrases IV: Adverbial modification
- 9 Word order in the clause I:General introduction
- 10 Word order in the clause II:Position of the finite verb (verb-first/second)
- 11 Word order in the clause III:Clause-initial position (wh-movement)
- Introduction
- 11.1. The formation of V1- and V2-clauses
- 11.2. Clause-initial position remains (phonetically) empty
- 11.3. Clause-initial position is filled
- 12 Word order in the clause IV:Postverbal field (extraposition)
- 13 Word order in the clause V: Middle field (scrambling)
- 14 Main-clause external elements
- Nouns and Noun Phrases
- 1 Characterization and classification
- 2 Projection of noun phrases I: complementation
- Introduction
- 2.1. General observations
- 2.2. Prepositional and nominal complements
- 2.3. Clausal complements
- 2.4. Bibliographical notes
- 3 Projection of noun phrases II: modification
- Introduction
- 3.1. Restrictive and non-restrictive modifiers
- 3.2. Premodification
- 3.3. Postmodification
- 3.3.1. Adpositional phrases
- 3.3.2. Relative clauses
- 3.3.3. Infinitival clauses
- 3.3.4. A special case: clauses referring to a proposition
- 3.3.5. Adjectival phrases
- 3.3.6. Adverbial postmodification
- 3.4. Bibliographical notes
- 4 Projection of noun phrases III: binominal constructions
- Introduction
- 4.1. Binominal constructions without a preposition
- 4.2. Binominal constructions with a preposition
- 4.3. Bibliographical notes
- 5 Determiners: articles and pronouns
- Introduction
- 5.1. Articles
- 5.2. Pronouns
- 5.3. Bibliographical notes
- 6 Numerals and quantifiers
- 7 Pre-determiners
- Introduction
- 7.1. The universal quantifier al 'all' and its alternants
- 7.2. The pre-determiner heel 'all/whole'
- 7.3. A note on focus particles
- 7.4. Bibliographical notes
- 8 Syntactic uses of noun phrases
- Adjectives and Adjective Phrases
- 1 Characteristics and classification
- 2 Projection of adjective phrases I: Complementation
- 3 Projection of adjective phrases II: Modification
- 4 Projection of adjective phrases III: Comparison
- 5 Attributive use of the adjective phrase
- 6 Predicative use of the adjective phrase
- 7 The partitive genitive construction
- 8 Adverbial use of the adjective phrase
- 9 Participles and infinitives: their adjectival use
- 10 Special constructions
- Adpositions and adpositional phrases
- 1 Characteristics and classification
- Introduction
- 1.1. Characterization of the category adposition
- 1.2. A formal classification of adpositional phrases
- 1.3. A semantic classification of adpositional phrases
- 1.3.1. Spatial adpositions
- 1.3.2. Temporal adpositions
- 1.3.3. Non-spatial/temporal prepositions
- 1.4. Borderline cases
- 1.5. Bibliographical notes
- 2 Projection of adpositional phrases: Complementation
- 3 Projection of adpositional phrases: Modification
- 4 Syntactic uses of the adpositional phrase
- 5 R-pronominalization and R-words
- 1 Characteristics and classification
- Coordination and Ellipsis
- Nouns and noun phrases (JANUARI 2025)
- 15 Characterization and classification
- 16 Projection of noun phrases I: Complementation
- 16.0. Introduction
- 16.1. General observations
- 16.2. Prepositional and nominal complements
- 16.3. Clausal complements
- 16.4. Bibliographical notes
- 17 Projection of noun phrases II: Modification
- 17.0. Introduction
- 17.1. Restrictive and non-restrictive modifiers
- 17.2. Premodification
- 17.3. Postmodification
- 17.3.1. Adpositional phrases
- 17.3.2. Relative clauses
- 17.3.3. Infinitival clauses
- 17.3.4. A special case: clauses referring to a proposition
- 17.3.5. Adjectival phrases
- 17.3.6. Adverbial postmodification
- 17.4. Bibliographical notes
- 18 Projection of noun phrases III: Binominal constructions
- 18.0. Introduction
- 18.1. Binominal constructions without a preposition
- 18.2. Binominal constructions with a preposition
- 18.3. Bibliographical notes
- 19 Determiners: Articles and pronouns
- 19.0. Introduction
- 19.1. Articles
- 19.2. Pronouns
- 19.3. Bibliographical notes
- 20 Numerals and quantifiers
- 20.0. Introduction
- 20.1. Numerals
- 20.2. Quantifiers
- 20.2.1. Introduction
- 20.2.2. Universal quantifiers: ieder/elk ‘every’ and alle ‘all’
- 20.2.3. Existential quantifiers: sommige ‘some’ and enkele ‘some’
- 20.2.4. Degree quantifiers: veel ‘many/much’ and weinig ‘few/little’
- 20.2.5. Modification of quantifiers
- 20.2.6. A note on the adverbial use of degree quantifiers
- 20.3. Quantitative er constructions
- 20.4. Partitive and pseudo-partitive constructions
- 20.5. Bibliographical notes
- 21 Predeterminers
- 21.0. Introduction
- 21.1. The universal quantifier al ‘all’ and its alternants
- 21.2. The predeterminer heel ‘all/whole’
- 21.3. A note on focus particles
- 21.4. Bibliographical notes
- 22 Syntactic uses of noun phrases
- 23 Referential dependencies (binding)
- Syntax
-
- General
This section discusses alternations between active and passive constructions. The characteristic property of these constructions is that the external argument of the verb is demoted to adjunct status, that is, that the external argument is no longer realized as the subject of the clause, but, for example, in an agentive door-PP. This demotion of the external argument seems to be the most important property of passivization, given that this immediately accounts for the fact that intransitive verbs differ from unaccusative verbs in that only the former can undergo this process; unaccusative verbs cannot be passivized since they do not have an external argument. This is illustrated in (15).
a. | Jan lacht. | intransitive | |
Jan laughs |
a'. | Er | wordt | gelachen | (door Jan). | |
there | is | laughed | by Jan |
b. | Jan valt. | unaccusative | |
Jan falls |
b'. | * | Er | wordt | gevallen | (door Jan). |
there | is | fallen | by Jan |
If the verb is (di-)transitive, the demotion of the external argument has the concomitant effect that one of the objects in the active construction is promoted to subject. If the verb is transitive, as in (16), it is the direct object that is promoted to subject.
a. | Jan beoordeelt | het boek. | active | |
Jan evaluates | the book |
b. | Het boek | wordt/is | (door Jan) | beoordeeld. | passive | |
the book | is/has.been | by Jan | evaluated |
When the verb is ditransitive, as in (17), whether the direct or the indirect object is promoted to subject depends on the passive auxiliary that is used: if the passive auxiliary is worden or zijn, as in (17b), the direct object is promoted; if the auxiliary is krijgen, as in (17c), the indirect object is promoted.
a. | Jan | stuurt | Marie | het boek | toe. | active | |
Jan | sends | Marie | the book | prt. |
b. | Het boek | wordt/is | Marie | toegestuurd. | worden-passive | |
the book | is/has.been | Marie | prt.-sent |
c. | Marie | krijgt | het boek | toegestuurd. | krijgen-passive | |
Marie | gets | the book | prt.-sent |
Note in passing that it is sometimes claimed that the verb zijn in examples such as (17b) is not a passive but a perfect auxiliary, which is assumed to select an empty verb that corresponds to the past participle form of the "true" passive auxiliary worden. This assumption is supported by pointing out that the participle geworden can be used in southern varieties of Dutch; we will not discuss this claim here but return to it in Section 6.2.2.
It is generally assumed that the promotion of one of the objects to subject is due to the fact that the passive morphology on the participle "absorbs" one of the cases that would normally be assigned to an internal argument of the verb; the internal argument that is deprived of its case must therefore be assigned nominative case, which is only possible if the external argument is demoted to adjunct. That it is indeed case assignment that is involved in the promotion of the direct/indirect object is clear from the fact that the nominal part of PP-complements like naar Marie in (18a) is not promoted to subject; since the nominal part of the PP-complement is assigned case by the preposition, there is no need for it to be assigned nominative case. See Section 3.2.1.3, sub IVB, for more discussion.
a. | Jan kijkt | naar Marie/haar. | |
Jan looks | at Marie/her |
b. | Er | wordt | naar Marie/haar | gekeken. | |
there | is | at Marie/her | looked |
b'. | * | Marie/zij | wordt | naar | gekeken. |
Marie/she | is | at | looked |
Passive constructions that correspond to active constructions with an intransitive (PO-)verb do not have a derived subject (an internal argument marked with nominative case) and are for that reason often referred to as impersonal passives. Passive constructions that correspond to active constructions with a (di-)transitive verb, on the other hand, invariably have a subject and can therefore be referred to as personal passives. The personal passives can be further divided on the basis of whether the subject corresponds to the direct or the indirect object of the corresponding active construction. Since the former case is most frequent, it is sometimes referred to as the regular passive; the latter case is referred to as the krijgen-passive.
type | subject corresponds to | example | section | |
impersonal passive | — | (15a') & (18b) | 3.2.1.2 | |
personal passive | regular passive | direct object | (16b) & (17b) | 3.2.1.3 |
krijgen-passive | indirect object | (17c) | 3.2.1.4 |
The remainder of this section is organized as follows. Section 3.2.1.1 starts with a discussion of some general properties of the passive, subsequently, the three types of passive constructions will be discussed in more detail in the sections indicated in the final column of Table 1.
